(first posted 9/5/2012) Perfect timing: I was just about to write a piece on the challenges of the full-sized fastback, and how certain later ones in the sixties just didn’t work, like the ’66-’67 Dodge Charger and the Rambler Marlin. And what pops up at the CC Cohort this morning, but one of my favorite fastbacks ever, a 1950 Buick, shot by Charkle the 2nd (I should know who that is in CC-speak by now). And in my favorite color too: patina. Let’s savor this Buick and compare it to a few other big fastbacks to determine what works and what doesn’t, and why.

The 1950 is the successor to the 1948 Buick Special we examined a while back. GM embraced fastbacks in a big way during the 1941 – 1951 period, but they soon gave way to the more popular trunked sedans and coupes. It was a fad, essentially, harking back to the golden streamliner era of the thirties and the Tatras that ushered it in.

But the whole direction of car shape was changing: lower, longer, and most of all, much longer trunks. And therein lies the problem with the second big fastback revival of the mid sixties: the cars’ basic shape just didn’t lend themselves to fastbacks.

The trunks of cars in the sixties and seventies were absurdly long, and it changed the whole relationship of the passenger compartment to the overall car. The classic long-hood, setback passenger compartment and short trunk was tossed aside. Trunks were now as long as the hoods, if not more so. And of course, they were much lower too, exacerbating the challenge of turning them into fastbacks.

Not surprisingly, Bill Mitchell’s GM studios handled the problem much more deftly than the rest. How? By not trying to turn such a long car into a true fastback. The ’67 full-sized coupes. like this Buick Wildcat, have a long, flowing roof, and are often called “fastbacks”, but they’re not, really. Look at how much trunk is still sticking out behind the end of the roofline.

Buick took the 1968 A-Body coupes a bit further towards a true fastback, but it’s still far from what the Charger and Marlin were trying to do. GM understood the problem, perhaps from its past experience, or just better design competence.

Ford embraced fastbacks with a vengeance too; sometimes successfully, other times not. You won’t have to guess too hard about my feelings on this one. It’s not quite as bad as the Charger and Marlin, but it follows the same pattern: grafting a fastback roof unto a body that was never originally designed for one. Compare it to the red Wildcat for a bit of contrast.

The ’67 Mustang fastback worked so much better: “Look Ma! I’ve got a short trunk!” As well as a set-back passenger compartment (and not much rear leg room, of course).

The 1970 Camaro took that approach and spun it into gold. Even Pininfarina praised it. Yes, it worked on the pony cars, and other small hatchbacks soon to come, but it didn’t on full-sized cars, mostly.

So let’s enjoy the golden era of the big fastbacks, as embodied by this fine 1950 Buick Special. It’s rear end shows another aspect of why it worked so well, since it doesn’t have to resolve itself into the high trunk lip-line of the existing bodies like all those other sixties’ fastbacks, but gets its own dedicated tapering tail.

Enough of tails. Needless to say, the Buick has quite the front end to contrast its smooth backside. Its certainly one of the more memorable ones from that era, regardless of whether you love it or hate it.

A fish from the depths of the sea. And with a multi-hued color scheme. And those famous Buick reverse-dished wheels; might as well show them off.

This gives me a chance to remind all CC Cohort shooters to not try to shoot interior shots from the driver’s side window. It just doesn’t work, due to reflections. Hold the lens flat to the glass of the passenger side window, and it solves the problem.

The Special was Buick’s lowest cost line, and powered by the smallest version of the straight eight, a 248 incher with 115 hp. Dynaflow was optional, but this one apparently doesn’t have it. Just as well, as it really needed the big 320 inch eight to keep it from feeling like a tug boat pulling a barge.

95 Comments

Another way to look at the difference between ’40s and ’60s fastbacks is the rear axle location and rear overhang. These big Buick fastbacks have the rear axle far enough back for lots of back seat legroom. Haven’t looked it up, but I’m sure the big forties fastbacks had far more rear legroom than their sixties counterparts.

Mustang’s fastback came to mind the instant you started talking about the long trunk. Its proportions are right for a fastback at the expense of back seat legroom. I know because our family car in my junior high school days was a Mustang hardtop. I got tall quickly and practically had my knees in my teeth. In high school they traded the Mustang for the Ford XL version of that fastback above. Much better back seat.

Did somebody say there is a problem with full-size fastbacks? I don’t see a problem at all!

The only “problem” I see is that I don’t own one!

I still like the mid-60’s Marlins, Chargers and Barracudas, goofy as they may have been, but I’m pretty goofy too. Of course, GM pulled it off better than anybody, however, the big GMs, especially the 1965-66 Impalas did it the best.

I really want a 2nd-gen Barracuda convertible, since it kind of took the place of the Valiant convertible. But I remember a guy I knew growing up who had one of the coupes. Even in the late 1970s they were scarce.

Ahhh, the “Spirit of America” Chevies of 1974-76! My wife had a SoA ’74 Nova exactly like the one above when we were dating. It was a southern rust-free car that had a 350 2-bbl/TH350 and got maybe 16MPG.

I wish we could have kept it but at the time it was either that or my ’57 Chevy 150 2-door sedan.

As for the Buick…that ’50 fastback is my all-time favorite Buick. Even over the ’63 Riviera.

MikePDX

Posted September 5, 2012 at 5:57 PM

Mine was a beater by the time I got it, and had some rust from spending its first winter in Wisconsin. Vinyl roof was shot, paint fading, SoA trim very faded. By the time I ditched it in ’87, everything was sort of loose, you had to lift that long door a few inches to get it closed, and the headliner was held up by staples. The guys at work were starting to give me funny looks.

But it always ran great. It was my one and only American V-8 automatic cruiser and I still miss it.

To be honest you had already dated yourself by something you said in an article. Don’t remember what. A guy in another thread (no name) here today mentioned grad school in 63. We keep giving ourselves away but I don’t really care. I just lost a friend today and we keep becoming fewer every year.

My favorite shirt is John Wayne on an “old guys rule” shirt. I don’t know what we rule but in my dreams I still have hair and don’t have cataracts. Dreams or not I am real happy to be here and kidding around on CC is as much fun as you can get for free.

Hope you get even older gramps.

Zackman

Posted September 5, 2012 at 6:55 PM

WST, my favorite movie still is John Wayne in the “Searchers”…

Sorry, Paul, but when one old-timer speaks, all chime in! I guess we’re “Armchair Classics”!

Back to our regularly scheduled car program…

wstarvingteacher

Posted September 5, 2012 at 10:03 PM

At Zackman: It was supposed to be one of the best pictures ever but in my youthful opinion is was great because Natalie Wood was hot. As she got older she got even better so that’s an opinion that I kept till she died.

rudiger

Posted September 29, 2016 at 1:29 PM

Reminds me of the old joke:

What are the three types of wood that don’t float?

Teak
Mahogany
Natalie

John H

Posted September 6, 2012 at 12:22 AM

Hey, I aspire to be as old as you guys are – much better than the alternative!

The perpetual struggle. Did not like the fastbacks but do like when it’s a hatchback. Brother (14 years older than me) owned a 48 chevy fastback. He was in the Navy and came home with it. I was about 8 years old. It was more than likely 1952-54 (not really 1950 was it?) when I realized how ugly I thought it was. Couldn’t see out the back window and I thought it just looked humpbacked. Then Dad got a 49. Still ugly.

When I realized how handy the hatchback was I was overseas. Toyota was the first that really got me. I guess it was a corolla. Workhorse of the orient. When I owned my first it was a Honda. It was a fastback also but had a big rear window. Good visibility. The one I really liked was the Nova. A guy in my apartment maintenance had one and I thought it was handy as a wagon.

To get a hatchback with good function today you have to buy an SUV or get an old wagon. Wet pavement and heavily loaded fwd hatchback can get scary. Last really good functioning (for utility) car was my (POS) Saturn Vue. Great till it broke but it was always broken. Before that the 77 Impala wagon. Like a giant 5 door hatch. Did air conditioning work out of it.

Zackman, I was born in June 43 and I think there are guys here that are at least as old as me. I had opinions before I had knowledge. So did all of us.

Heck, I had to get a CB radio license when I got my first CB. Had to anounce my call letters when signing on or off, although I forget what they were. I am in the same general age group as the rest of the OF’s.

Prius V has much better rear leg, shoulder, & head room than the hatchback (rear seats even adjust fore/aft), & is more quiet & comfortable. Of course it’s less efficient than the hatch, but compared to other wagon-like vehicles, it’s worth considering.

emjayay

Posted September 30, 2016 at 10:49 PM

When the next Prius V comes out it should be related to the new regular Prius on a completely new platform, meaning it is a much better car. It just might be kind of horrible looking though.

As a matter of personal taste, I think that the blue ’68 Buick is the least attractive car in this article. You can see how they’ve softened-up all the lines versus the ’67 Wildcat above it. They also made the lower body crease dip lower as it sweeps to the back of the car. To me, the whole rear fender on the blue Buick looks like a large flat expanse, and the large, strangely-shaped C-pillar from their pseudo-fastback makes it worse.

I have the same complaint about the rear fender with the current Cadillac CTS coupe, a modern take on fastback styling.

Buick didn’t actually call them “fastbacks”. As noted in the title, this two-door sedan is a “Sedanet”. (Where’s the “et” come from?). The four-door fastback is a “Jetback Sedan”, and the fastback business coupe is a “Jetback Coupe”. What we’d call a four-door notchback is the “Tourback”.

In the 1930’s it was a ‘touring back’ essentially a fastback except that the slope was shorter and a lot steeper (like twice as steep as a 40’s sedanet). This was to differentiate it from the extra cost ‘trunk back’ where the trunk lid bulged to give more luggage room.

I’ve since realized that the sedan versions of the 30s/40s fastback-esque designs are the ancestors (in silhouette) of our modern CUVs. The passenger compartments of each cut a remarkably similar profile.

It’s so nice to hear so many people say such wonderful things about me 🙂

my love of the fastback is rooted in that ’66-67 Mustang, but as a denizen of this board I’ve fallen in further love with the Volvo pv544, this Buick Special, the 48 Pontiac from a few days ago and all the mid 60s impalas/Wildcats/Rivs/Toros.. Thanks CC!

“This gives me a chance to remind all CC Cohort shooters to not try to shoot interior shots from the driver’s side window. It just doesn’t work, due to reflections.”

Can you get a circular polarizing filter for your camera? You’d probably have better luck with shots like this if you used one. If you’re still using the Lumix I don’t think you can get filters like that, but $300 on a nice used DSLR with a cheap zoom lens and a $6 polarizing filter would get you where you need to go.

My technique is to cup the lens of the point&shoot with my other hand and hold that close to the glass (not quite touching — as the sign says, ‘Do Not Touch’) which is enough to block reflections from the glass. It works pretty well, apart from a bit of reflection around the edge of the shot depending on the angle etc. This shot of a Lancia Flaminia was taken on a bright, sunny day.

Good article. Even in compact form the fastback sometimes didn’t work so well. Look at the first- and second-generation Barracudas. The 1967-69s were a bit more graceful than the 1964-66s, but their arc was too flat, which gave the c-pillar too much mass when viewed in profile. A GM-style s-curve roofline would have worked much better. Of course, the Barracuda also had a disadvantage because it did not get a shortened wheelbase behind the front doors like the Mustang and Camaro.

Now consider the 1968-70 Javelin. It was a compromise between the Barracuda and Mustang. It had a short deck but not a shorter wheelbase behind the front doors. That could have screwed up the proportions but Dick Teague did a deft job with the c-pillar. Even though it’s absolutely huge — one of the biggest in the business — it worked surprisingly well because of the graceful interaction of the window cutouts and the GM-like, semi-fastback roofline.

The other factor was how the c-pillar’s shoulder-level character line tapered nicely into the Javelin’s fishmouth front grille. That — along with the wrap-around full-width taillights on the 1968-69s — served to pull the eye away from the massiveness of the c-pillar, or at least accentuate the width rather than the length of the rear end. Just lovely. And utterly destroyed by the 1971 redesign.

It’s too bad the Javelin didn’t have a fold-down back seat and hatchback, because it then would have had the roomiest back seat and the most cargo capacity of any pony car . . . but still would have looked much better than the Barracuda. A major reason why the popularity of ponycars quickly faltered is that they weren’t as versatile as sedan-based two doors such as the Duster.

(Okay, so the Duster’s semi-fastback managed to look better proportioned than the 1967-69 Barracuda fastback or hunchback. But its front end was stubby and its rear might as well have been named Bertha Butt. Yuk.)

To me, the 60s fastbacks — particularly the ’64-’66 Barracuda, Marlin, and ’66-67 Charger — are very angle-dependent. With the Charger, I think it’s partly because of the relatively narrow track (59.5/58.5 inches F/R) and 14-inch wheels. In profile, the ’66-’67 Charger looks pretty good, but as soon as you start getting to three-quarter angles, the sheer volume of the roof makes the body of the car look enormous relative to the footprint of the wheels, giving the impression of a football linebacker balanced precariously on ballet slippers several sizes too small.

I kind of like the ’67-’69 Barracuda fastback, but it ends up taking a back seat to the notchback hardtop, which has a very nice (and decidedly second-gen Corvair) roofline with thin sail panels.

In fairness to the Duster, it was sort of an improvisation designed to share as much tooling as possible with the standard Valiant body, so some awkwardness is to be expected.

C’mon, the ’67 Wildcat is a fastback just as much as the Impala hardtop of the same year.

I’m sure the stylists have a term for the angle of the rear window like ‘tumblehome’ or something similiar. If the window is within a certain angle, I’m sure it qualifies as a technical ‘fastback’.

As to which car was the best looking fastback, those ’67-’68 Mustangs are surely a top contender. Conversely, one of the most extreme fastbacks (being almost completely horizontal) would have to be the nearly flat rear window of the ’71-’73 Mustangs.

I love fastbacks. My uncle had a 49 Caddy sedanet and I like those awkward looking late 40/early 50s four doors especially. I’ve had a couple of 66 Rivs and 240/2480z (s) and what I consider the king of overstyled full size fastbacks- The 71 Riv boat tail.

Thanks for bringing back memories. My dad had a 50 Buick special fastback in olive green in the 50’s. Growing up my sister and I would slide down the rear trunk and have contests to see who could do it faster. My dad would yell at us because we would scratch his car. But It was so much fun!

I love the 1949 Buick best. It is my dream car now. I like the way the rear fenders arc vs. the 50’s more upright fenders. I love the way the 49’s taillights are more stylized and nearer to horizontal. Even the taillights follow the fastback theme. For me, the 49 is the style king of the period.

I agree with 1949 style…….
My first car in 1962 was a 1950 Buick Special 4dr fast back. “same color”
My father bought it new and gave it to me. It was a real slow poke with the straight 8 and Dynaflow trans. Also a gas hog. After buying new tires and a new battery It caught fire while parked at the curb, still don’t miss it.

I can admire them for their efficient design (compared to the barges they replaced), but that’s about it. From an aesthetic standpoint it’s like the automotive equivalent of white bread. Well, I guess since the grille has some kind of styling (Olds waterfall) it’s like white bread with some seasoning salt on it.

My Dad bought one of these 1950 Buick Special Sedanet Model 46D from the estate of the original owner in 1969. It had been sitting in a field for quite a while.
When he tried to start it, it wouldn’t turn over. Of course the 6 volt battery was quite dead. There was a service station next to the field where the car was. Dad asked the guy if he would help him jump start the car. The mechanic said it would be $100. Dad declined and pulled his full sized 7 car car-hauler tractor-trailer close enough to get jumper cables on the battery, gave it a short charge and a shot of gas, tripped the magic switch on the carburetor and drove the car on the back of the trailer – four flat tires and all.
We had the car for nearly 15 years after that. It was one of the few 1950s like the one above that didn’t come with a Dynaflow. At 35 years old, with about 110,000 miles on it, it finally needed a clutch.
My brother parked it in his barn to lift the rear end and slide the back axle and torque tube set up off the transmission and left to do a 4 day trucking run. While he was gone, lightning hit the barn and put it and the poor old Buick up in flames.
The car was a lot of fun to drive – one day I had a brand new 1982 Z-28 pull up beside me at highway speed and he wanted to race. He was mighty surprised when that 32 year old car beat him to the next town. He couldn’t believe it only had a 248 straight 8 until I opened the hood and showed him.

When I was a kid a neighbor who was a Buick guy had a ’49 Special Sedanet 2-dr. similar to the one shown and a ’52 Special regular sedan. Later traded the ’49 for a ’59 LeSabre 4 dr. sedan and the ’52 for a ’64 Special Deluxe. All were modestly equipped with radio, heater, Dynaflow and little else.

The early Buicks had their unique features, like side opening hoods, starter under the gas pedal and a radio antenna that sprouted from the top of the windshield. The antenna attached to a knob on the inside that could be turned to swing it out of the way when entering a low ceiling garage.

Can still recall the distinctive sound of a Buick straight 8 with the one speed Dynaflow pulling away. Exactly like an old Evinrude outboard.

“Can still recall the distinctive sound of a Buick straight 8 with the one speed Dynaflow pulling away. Exactly like an old Evinrude outboard.”

Indeed, the engine would speed up, there would be some hesitation, and then the car would catch up with the engine, as the torque got converted in the Dynaflow. It was just like opening the throttle on a motorboat.

I used to occasionally go to lunch in a co-workers Nissan Rogue, with the CVT. It was eerily similar to riding in a Buick with Dynaflow; engine would speed up and then the car would proceed. Perhaps not as pronounced as in a 1950’s Buick but the motorboat feeling was definitely there.

I think part of the sound was from the secondary impeller, which during acceleration is spinning faster than the engine. (The earliest Dynaflow and Powerglide had essentially a two-stage impeller, with the two stages connected by an overrunning clutch. This was abandoned for 1953 on both transmissions.)

I can’t say that I ever noticed weird noises from the 1950 Buick dynaflow. I know that in Drive it was slow from a standstill. My understanding of the secondary impeller is that at a standstill and under acceleration the transmission fluid pushes the secondary impeller faster than the primary impeller. As the car picks up some speed, less fluid is flowing through the stator so that the secondary impeller slows down to the primary’s speed.

The second generation Dynaflow/Powerglides both use completely different torque converter designs. The Powerglide is a basic torque converter, while the Dynaflow has twin turbine design.

SanityChallngd

Posted October 2, 2016 at 1:58 PM

I recall my Dad saying his first 1950 Buick with the Dynaflow was his “Beer Money Machine” when he had it in the mid 1950’s. Seems it was about 15 miles back to K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base from his favorite bar in Negaunee, Michigan.

He’d take somebody up on their bet that their late model Ford could beat him back to the base. Fords would have him all the way to the edge of town, but that Buick would get wound up and he’d be the first one to the main gate of the base.

Often, I guess, he’d be leaning against the fender lighting up a cigar while waiting for the night’s victim, um, opponent to pull up and pay off.

I know its isnt correct but Holdens basically pioneered this body style in the late 30s with their sloper style, a cross between a sedan and a business coupe without the coupe part, strange looking cars for the most part to me we had proper coupe bodies in NZ which Aussies have been coming over and taking home with them since the first found out about them decades ago.

The early ones (like this) were quite nice looking, but from ’37 on they went with a very thin B-pillar and window frames, and a much more sloped and heavy-looking back – now they were strange looking! Early ’35s like the one my Dad owned before the war had an opening rear window for ventilation only; definitely not big enough for loading!

Something missing from the article and comments is where the sixties’ fastback revival originated. My nomination is it returned first with the 1962 Ferrari GTO, which not only inspired all of the popular, traditional domestic fastbacks that followed, but two years later, the 1964 Ferrari GTO would also be the origin of the more short-lived ‘flying buttress’, tunnelback, inset rear window that would appear on the 1966 GM intermediates and 1968 Charger and Corvette.

Yup, fastbacks only really work with short rear ends. Most of the fastback-styled cars of the ’60 looked ridiculous, with way too much trunk hanging out behind the rear wheels. The original Mustang worked great precisely because of its long hood/short deck proportions.

When I saw that red Wildcat I thought surely this can’t be one of the subjects of the article, could it? Great to see you like it too Paul. It looks like a show car to me.

In modern times you don’t see the Charger, Marlin mistake very often but Toyota made it on the Camry Solara. It had the exact same length and wheelbase as the Camry sedan and it just didn’t work. Too much rear floor.

I really love those ’48-50 GM Fastbacks. There is going to be a car show at Point Fermin Park in San Pedro, CA on Sunday where there will be tons of the Chevys.

Suprised there is no mention of the ’71 Riviera as a later example fastback especially since it is a Buick and full size. When you look at the rear of the ’71 boat tail Riv’ it almost looks like the design was somewhat inspired by the Sedanet (look at the 11th photo down in the article) even though it wasn’t.

Actually I have always loved those old Chargers (Especially a white-on-black one like that, I think.) The interiors are just something special, and well, maybe it’s a bigger car than I’d gravitate to, but they look really cool to me: (Really to be fair, they seem to have started with that spectacular interior and made the exterior changes to fit *that,* ) I think they just need bigger wheels than the stock ones, which seem to throw it all out of proportion: if I had one to fix up, (and the budget) I’d resto-mod and rectify that, whatever I had to do to the gearing: would need disc brakes anyway and want to improve handling. 🙂

I am going to stick up for the 68 Ford fastback, at least a little. I don’t think white paint does this style any favors. The stylists concluded the roof a bit forward of the tail end here as well, at least moreso than the Charger (but not as much as with the GM cars.)

I will admit that the fastback roof works better on the Mercury, which seemed to give the tail end more room to resolve and also broke up the side view with the more pronounced belt and fender line.

A great, insightful article as usual, Paul! I agree wholeheartedly…….I’ve never set out to analyze why a fastback profile works much better on a smaller car, other than that–subliminally–my eyes have been trained to realize that for whatever reason, sporty cars just generally look better in smaller or reduced proportions. I’ve never been super crazy about the Charger fastback, nor the ’68 Ford fullsize fastback. The fastback design looks best, I think, when it flows down into the trunk, but that also tends to reduce trunkspace in favor of a more aesthetically pleasing design. I think that there was some point in the 60’s/ 70’s where car makers realized that fullsize cars were better off when they left the sporty intentions to the pony and sports cars (something that Ford, themselves, realized with the Thunderbird, when it became more of a junior Lincoln in the late 60’s and focused more on luxury.

I prefer the late ’60s (’69?) Torino GT fastback over the Galaxie.
And I’ve grown to like all the early ’49 – early ’50s GM versions – even the Chevys.
All the style of the early ’50s Bentley Continental fastback, without that uber high-price and snob-appeal.

Another infamous fastback that didn’t work was the ’78-’79 Olds Cutlass Salon and Buick Century “aeroback” sedans. Granted these weren’t full-sized, but they were marketed as mid-sized which is just a step below, much as several of the ’60s fastbacks (huge as they look to modern eyes) were only midsized in their day.